The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants, Comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of Both Sexes: The Third PartHead, Richard
General
The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants, Comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of Both Sexes: The Third Part
Head, Richard
Rogues and vagabonds -- England -- Fiction
part, and commonly spent the rest (to my advantage) of what he had
received; and to the intent the more might come into my pocket, I
advised her by all means not to starve his service, but incourage him
often with sums of money; urging moreover, that the poor Gentleman could
not but be at great charges in maintaining himself in a strange place,
exiling himself freely from his own habitation, to be near at her
Command; beside the great expence he is daily at in costly broths,
jellies, with other provocatives, or restorers of decai’d nature.
I needed not to have tempted her to liberality, she being naturally
prone thereunto; always extravagantly rewarding kindnesses of this
nature. She began now to grow very pensive, and unusually melancholy, to
see all her swelling hopes thus dasht; and was not so sociable as she
used to be with her friend; which gave him some cause to suspect her
inconstancie, or that she would speedily desert him, and accept some
other; which put him on the contrivance to save something, that might be
a support to him, if his sallary should fail, or at leastwise keep him
alive, till his Country-Contributions, or padding incomes should supply
his profuse, and unnecessary expences.
When ever he came, she entertain’d him with such an undeserved
franckness, that she concealed nothing from him, that might either
please his fancie, or satisfie his curiosity. Understanding she was
admirable at her Needle, he desired her to shew him some pieces of her
art, that he might by the applauding of the one admire the other. She
readily condescended to what he propounded; being glad he had demanded a
thing which came within the verge of her power to please him withal.
Opening a large Cypress-Chest, she shew’d him great variety of excellent
pieces of her own hand-working; and withal he discovered several bags
cramm’d with other pieces, which he had a greater minde to handle; which
I conceiv’d she shew’d him out of meer ostentation, telling him withal,
that as long as one penny was in them his pockets should not be
unfurnisht with money; and that when all those bags were emptied, her
Husbands annual estate would quickly fill them again, and six times as
many.
This assurance of having his constant stipend continued, prevailed not
in the least on this Caret-pated villains ingrateful designs; but he
resolved, with the first opportunity, to make himself Master of those
sums, although he knew he must unavoydably lose his Mistress thereby;
the next morning she sent for him, to acquaint him, that her Husband was
gone some twenty miles off, and that he would not return in five days,
having 300 _lib._ to receive of such a man, naming the place where he
lived. This damn’d Dog, hearing this, caper’d for joy, which the poor
Innocent believed, proceeded from his thinking what a long time he had
to enjoy his Mistress uncontroulably: whereas it was otherwise, for now
he knew how to kill two Birds with one stone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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